Today is a day we celebrate in Greece by cooking or baking anything with cheese and so it is called Tyrini (tyri = cheese) and as it is always on a Sunday we call it Cheesy Sunday. Just like carnival is celebrated by eating all the meat before lent (carne levare meaning remove all meat) …
Greek
Makarounotes Chylopites (or hilopites) are traditional Greek egg and milk pasta. They are either cut long like tagliatelle and fettuccine or in very small pieces of about 1 cm long which are ideal as a side dish or in soups. Makarounotes are the long ones, which take their name after the word “makaroni”, which is a description of the long pasta to distinguish them from the smaller ones.
My daughter’s first cake I have written a lot of times about my mother and some memories I have shared with you relating to cooking with her. I am hoping that one day my daughter, Evangelia (we call her Elia) will also have some good memories whenever she is helping me out in the kitchen. …
Glyko Bergamonto or Bergamot fruit preserve is one of the most delicious and aromatic Greek fruit preserves (glyka tou koutaliou in Greek).
Picture from last week’s “laiki agora” our farmers’ market. In Greece we do not have a lot of varieties of potatoes, such as yellow potatoes, blue potatoes or red potatoes nor do we have names for them. The only potatoes we have are the usual oval, brown skin and white flesh potatoes. There …
Akoumia Symiaka (means doughnuts or donuts from Symi island). Symi is a small island of the Dodekanese to the north of Rhodes. These akoumia are not widely known even by Greeks because they are Symi’s local traditional doughnut recipe and are made only on the island of Symi.
The formula to make an Orange or other Citrus liqueur, such as lemons, bergamot, mandarin, bitter oranges, pomelo, etc is very simple. You take the peel or zest and steep it in alcohol to extract the essence of the fruit. Then you make a simple syrup with sugar and combine both together.
Kalon Prama, which is the Cypriot name for Samali, is a moist, eggless, semolina cake, made with sheep’s milk yoghurt, flavoured with mastic and bathed in syrup.
Melitzanosalata is a traditional Greek vegan dip / appetizer made with eggplants which have been charred over charcoal or over an open flame, until the skin blisters, to get a smoky taste. The skin is then removed, as well as the seeds, if any, and the eggplant is either finely chopped, mashed with a fork or pureed.
Melitzanes Papoutsakia (pronounced pah-pou-TSA -kya) are stuffed eggplants with meat sauce, topped with a rich bechamel sauce and then baked. The word “papoutsakia” in Greek means little shoes and probably they are named after their shape.